


Nothing Like Summer In The City

by TheUnfinishedProject



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex died in Weehawken, Alternate Universe - Ending Credits Setting, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bad Spelling & Grammar, Crack, Gen, Hamilton will take over the world, I had nothing to do and I came up with this very vivid daydream, I partly blame Lin, I'm Sorry, Recreational Drug Use (mentioned), Swearing, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Lord's name is taken in vain, Time Travel, and not even once, based on the question "What would you do if you ever met your favorite character?", but he woke up in a totally different place, probably, the answer is: "I'd bring him home and give him pasta"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:30:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7993639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnfinishedProject/pseuds/TheUnfinishedProject
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That one time when I was bored out of my mind and I came across a very confused Alexander Hamilton in a park, and what happened after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A strange encounter

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic and it's also one of the most idiotic things I've ever written. Hooray for me. I really wanted to begin my journey on this site with something serious, but all that came out of my mind is this crap.  
> In italian there's a very specific term for this kind of thing; it more or less means "mental mansturbation" and it's a very stupid idea that blooms within your brain and then starts growing and growing until it gets out of control and you are left with a very funny reasoning you can share with your friends when you're all high - or, in this case, with a fanfiction.  
> Therefore, read, my dear friends, and after that feel free to insult me and blackmail me via whatever you want, I won't take it personally. I'd do the same.
> 
> (I'm really sorry for any unintentional morphosyntactic error you might find. This is my first attempt at writing in english, so...yeah...let me know if I'm killing your language.)

This one I’m going to tell is a very weird episode that happened to me not a long time ago.

Listen.

It was the summer after my high-school graduation and I wasn’t supposed to enter college before October. It was now the middle of August and this far, that had been the most boring summer of my entire life. You know, your first high-school free break should be a happy time, a two months period in which you go crazy and fulfill your life of excitement-fueled activities from dawn to sunse – dawn.

But I was alone. My friends were all on vacation, I didn’t have money enough to afford that, because I’m poor, so all I could do was just grumpily staring at their smiling faces in the Instagram pics they posted as I strolled through my city’s empty streets, sweating my ovaries off on the boiling, cracked tarmac.

That day I was wandering around in the park that surrounds my city’s hospice – I guess you are now asking yourself, why on earth would I do that? Well, first of all, there’s nowhere to go in this hellhole of a city. It’s right in the middle between an highway and a deep dark forest infested by mosquitos. There is nothing here. No cinema, no pub, no mall, and no gathering place of any kind, unless you count that one drunk bar I work in three evenings per week and thus I have no reason to spend my free time in.

Second of all, my favorite drug dealer wastes a great part of his life in that park lying on a pile of picnic blankets behind a bush. I actually think he lives there. One way or another, it turns out he was apparently on holiday too. Oh, bummer.

Weedless (that’s a real word, fight me) and full of sorrow and regret I walked for a while before stopping and sitting under a huge tree, pulling out my phone; I had every intention of spending the deadliest hours of noon with my ass firmly set on the grass, shielded from the merciless sunshine.

As I let my thoughts travel among the concepts of life and death and the caducity of the human nature and the cuteness of fluffy kittens, I suddenly heard some rustling by my side, followed by a low moan.

 _Oh, no, not again,_ I thought, and I skipped up to my feet to get away from anything that could be happening back there, when the branches and the leaves parted to reveal the figure of–

A man. He was short and ruffled and covered in dirt and, unless my eyes were deceiving me, completely clad in a full late-1700s outfit – you know, patent leather shoes, knee pants, waistcoat and a long coat and ruffles around his neck and ruffles around his wrists. All green. Very green. Very ruffle-y. Oh, and I forgot to mention he was also wearing a fucking powdered wig on his head.

He straightened himself and sent a look in my direction – a puzzled look of disbelief, like I were the weird-looking one there. He finally stopped gawking at my naked legs and, apparently pulling himself together, he threw his shoulders back and asked me,

“My dear lady, may I inquire about where on the wide, God-blessed surface of this Earth inhabited by men, we happen to be?”

“North Italy,” I answered to him in English, pointing over my shoulder. “Milan’s over there.”

His gaze followed my finger, his eyebrows knitting together. “But this is actually the lovely town of Catamazzaro del Vallo, dry fields on two sides, and a rat-infested ditch near the South end. Are you alright, sir?” What I really wanted to know was why the hell he was dressed like that, but he looked too pained and too worried for me to be so direct.

“I don’t know.” He scratched his neck and sighed. “I think…I think I’ve been shot.”

“WHAT? WHERE?”

I frantically looked him over from a distance searching for the wound, but I couldn’t find any blood. I looked around, too, squeezing my eyes towards the dark corners that surrounded us. If this man had been attacked, his quasi-killer could be there, not very far away. _I knew, I knew I should have stayed home and watch Bake Off UK!_

“What happened? Who shot you? Mother of God, answer me, he may be watching us right now! Jesus, I’ll have to call an ambulance…”

“Your worry is very welcome, my dear girl, but in all sincerity I don’t feel bad at all. It seemed to me that I had been struck by a gunshot right between my ribs, but I’m not in pain, and blood isn’t pooling around my feet, as one would expect in similar circumstances. I don’t think I’m in need of medication. Nevertheless…” he lightly touched the fabric that covered his chest, just a few inches under his nipple. Or so I suppose. “The sensation was so real, I still can feel the impact of the bullet hitting my flesh, before the world went black. I have no explanation for such a vivid vision, nor for the fact that, after waking up, I find myself so far from home, all the way across the Ocean and into the land of navigators, scholars, and robbers.”

“Thanks, jeez.”

“As for my killer, the only two things I’m sure of are the sparkle of fear which lit his eyes as I fell to the ground – the last image I saw – and the assurance that he cannot harm you nor me. Again. I left him in America, where he will be basking in his sin until the Devil himself calls for him, dragging him to Hell for all eternity.”

_Okay, he’s not hurt, he’s just fucking crazy. Get the fuck out now._

“Well, buddy, that’s a nice story,” I mumbled, starting to retreat, “I’m glad you are, in fact, alright, but I have to go study for my blood test now, so what about –”

“He is,” he said as if he hadn’t acknowledged a word (side note: he hadn’t), “my life-long foe. My first friend. My enemy.”

He turned his head to the side and fixed his blue gaze to the horizon.

“Aaron Burr.”

 

* * *

 

 

And that’s the moment I stopped in my tracks and started to really freak out; our strange encounter had been nothing in comparison. Because you see, I _knew_ very well who _Aaron Burr_ was, and that only made things even more weird and confusing. I’ll explain this more clearly dividing the matter into points:

1) I had been fangirling over the new musical by Lin Manuel Miranda for months, now, but there was no way whatsoever anyone could have known about my new obsession and hired this guy to pull a prank on me – because I hadn’t bragged about it to anyone. Anyone, besides my two closest friends, of course, but

2) Hey, they were currently on holiday anyway! And even if they weren’t, what kind of crazy-ass prank was that? And besides

3) I recognized, recognized the man standing in front of me. That well-shaped nose, those clear eyes, that faint smile that gave him a look that could be either one of absolute innocence or of downright dickiness… When he had emerged from the bushes, I had had the tickling feeling his face was kind of familiar. Of course it was. It was printed on the FUCKING 10 DOLLAR BILL, which I had spent an awful lot of days looking at on the internet!

This simple, methodical line of thoughts translated in real life into me gaping and sweating profusely, at first unable to say a word, until I finally got my shit together and, forgetting about my distress, I was able to ask, even though my voice was slightly shaking,

“Excuse me, sir, are you by any chance Alexander Hamilton?”

He gave a soft smile (YEAH THAT SMILE) and nodded. “It’s me.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Pardon?”

I made vague gesture with my hand and leaned against the nearest tree. It was too much. But apparently he hadn’t grasped on my uneasiness. “So you know my name?” he inquired, rather proudly.

“Man, I know way more than your name, believe me. I know every detail of your freaking life. Do you know what year it is?”

He was taken aback. “The last time I checked, it was 1804.”

“Nope. It’s 2016 and you have been dead for more than two-thousand years.” I walked towards him and looked straight into his eyes, too overwhelmed to chuckle at the fact that I didn’t even have to really look up to him to do that. How tall was he, 5’4’’?

I know that, by now, many of you must be thinking that I’m mad. Any normal person would have turned around and walked (or better, run) away, but this that I was feeling was a surreal sensation of certainty: it wasn’t a matter of madness or faith, my body and brain simply knew that that man really was Alexander Hamilton. I had sorta known that since the first moment I saw him, even if I hadn’t realized it, and I didn’t feel like questioning his identity more that I would have questioned the identity of an ill-defined inhabitant of my dreams.

“I’m really sorry that I’m the one telling you this, but Aaron Burr _did_ shoot you, and you _did_ die in 1804. Looking at the bright side, you became kind of a mythical figure after your death. Your enemies cried after your lost potential – you know that way of saying? ‘They’re all assholes when they’re alive, they’re all saints once they’re dead’? – and they even wrote a beautiful play about you, which I personally adore!”

It didn’t seem like my words were having a great impact on him. He shook his head and sent a worried look in my direction.

“I don’t know what is currently happening, but you certainly sound like a madwoman. I’m very much alive right now…”

“Oh my God, listen to me! You went to sleep in America and woke up here for some unknown reason, how is it not mad per se?”

“Maybe we should part ways. I’ll go and seek help on my own.”

“You called your wife Betsey. You loved her more than anything in the world.”

He was already turning around to leave, but he suddenly stopped. He stood where he was, waiting.

“You broke her heart when you published that stupid Pamphlet, and she didn’t want you in your bed anymore for a long time. When you went to the dueling ground to face Burr, you left her a note addressed to the ‘best of wives and best of women’.”

“My Betsey. You can’t –”

“You were born on Nevis in 1757, but you told everyone you were older, born in 1755, so that they couldn’t question your excessively young age. You fought side by side with John Laurens during the Revolution, he was your friend and your lover, you even asked him – as a joke - to join you and Eliza on your first night together. You were General Washington’s favorite aide-de-camp, but he sent you home in 1781 because you couldn’t keep that goddamn mouth of yours shut. He then called you back, you won the war, and you became the first Secretary of Treasury of America. You were an orphan, a war-hero, and a brilliant politician. Even though you died in a pretty stupid way, I must say.”

And with that, I had accomplished what Hamilton’s enemies had declared of not being able to – I had shut him up. He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes wide and shining, his breath fast. And then,

“You are wrong about one thing,” he simply said.

“What is it?”

“The General didn’t send me home, I decided to retire, as I was too angry and disappointed to remain where I was.” He threw up his hands. They were trembling. “Dear God. What should I do? This can’t be real,” he murmured. “Who are you? I mean, who are you really?”

“Just a nice girl from the future, my name is ***. Don’t worry, Alex, we’ll figure it out,” I reassured him, giving him a light tap on his arm. I didn’t feel as sure as I wanted to look, but what else could I do? Leave him in the park, alone?

He drew back from my touch. “No one, unless you count my family and my closest friends, has ever called me ‘Alex’.”

“Well, I’m going to, like it or not. I almost know more about you than about myself.” I wiped the back of my shorts with my hands and nodded to the right. “Come on, let’s get out of this fucking hospice. We’ll go to my place. We have to talk. Don’t worry, I don’t have a bastard of a husband ready to blackmail you as soon as you step into my sitting-room.”

A flash of anger crossed his features. “How dare you…”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it.”

Surprisingly enough, he did. And we left.


	2. Carbonara and latest news

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. Don't worry, this thing is heading somewhere.  
> Somehow.  
> I hope.

Do you have any idea of how hard it is to sneak back home from the opposite side of the city with a Founding Father trotting after you, gazing at everything in awe? Well, I do.

To his credit, Alexander didn’t show that much of a reaction. I expected him to be much more uncomfortable, afraid maybe – but he simply looked around with curiosity, asking polite and sensible questions from time to time; he had calmed himself down, somehow, and by now the scholar in him was emerging.

Then again, he was Alexander Freakin’ Hamilton; the man had fought a war, survived a hurricane, survived Thomas Jefferson (but not Burr), seen many people he loved die before his eyes. It would take a lot more than a simple time-travel and a walk to make him afraid. And Catamazzaro del Vallo wasn’t exactly New York City, or Tokyo: there wasn’t any kind of advanced technologic development worth of taking note of.

That said, he did scream and jump two meters high (more or less) when a car flashed next to us along the crossroad heading to the highway, loud techno music pumping from its windows.

I had tried keeping our path along the backstreets, between the graffiti-covered walls and the piles of litter scattered around – given Alex’s wig and, well, everything else, I didn’t want anyone to spot us, not even by chance – but there was no way I could have avoided the main road without heading for the woods.

“What in the Heaven’s name was THAT?”

“That’s a car.”

“A cart?”

“No, a car. It’s like…a carriage, but you don’t need horses to make it move. You just sit in there and choose your direction.”

He pursed his lips. “Like a steamship?”

"Ish.” I didn’t have time to sit down and explain to him the long-run consequences of the Industrial Revolution right now.

We walked in silence for a while. Then, just as we were crossing the street near my old elementary school – my visitor had been delighted by the sight of the traffic lights – he patted my arm. I turned around. “What is it?”

“Could I ask you a question? If I’m not too outspoken with my words.”

“You have been asking questions for twenty minutes straight, so why not? Speak up.”

“Why are you naked?”

I stared at him for a long moment, oblivious to what the fuck that even meant. I was wearing shorts and a tank top and sneakers, I sure as hell –

Oh.

“Well, times have changed.” I shrugged. “It’s pretty normal in this century to go around like this.”

“So you are not a prostitute?”

“WHA – NO!”

“I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have – ”

“No, listen, it’s okay.” I forced myself to remove my palm from my face. “Many things are different from how you used to know them. Slavery, for example, was abolished for good.”

“Are you speaking the truth? God be blessed. I’m overwhelmed by joy, hearing that. Our sacrifices weren’t carried out in vain, then.”

“And even though prejudice is still present, for the first time in all history the current President of the United States is black.”

“A black President? I didn’t expect that, but it’s absolutely amazing.”

“Women suffrage was established in almost every country.”

“Women…wait, what?”

He had stopped. In the middle of the fucking pedestrian crossing. I eyed him from hair to toe. “Yeah, what’s the matter?”

He raised his hands, palms up. “Well, there is no ‘matter’ to be spoken of. I’m glad that the world became more civilized place while I…uhm…was away, but _women suffrage_? Women and politics? It’s never going to work.”

“I assure you it does. Listen, you are a great guy, but I don’t want to have this conversation with you, not now, and especially not in the middle of the street. This is not the place for debate.”

“I’m not saying this to antagonize you,” he continued in a condescending tone. “I decided to trust you and follow you towards a place I can shelter in, but you can’t deny that the passional nature of women makes them unfit to vote, let alone to govern.”

I was by now ready to dump him there, or to violently kick him. The perfect excuse to do the latter was given to me by the sound of a voice approaching not very far away. I snatched Hamilton’s sleeve and dragged him to the other side of the road, pushing him into a dark alley nearby with both my hands and feet. “Stay here! _Please_!”

The intruder was one of my mother’s friends, suddenly in the mood for very boring small talk and really interested in in my life. So interested, as a matter of fact, that it took me five whole minutes to get rid of her. Once I succeeded in getting myself free, I was relieved discovering that Alexander was still in his alley, with a very annoyed frown on his face. “Times have changed, indeed.”

 

* * *

 

 

I think I forgot to mention that, luckily, in those days I was home alone, and I was supposed to stay alone for about a week. My step-father was currently working abroad; my mother was attending a few days’ upgrading course in another city; my younger siblings were spending some time at our grandparents’ house, near the lake – I could have gone too, but who is the loser that refuses the possibility of taking a break from family? Especially if they know their house is going to be left empty?

Ahem.

The only exception was my older sister, but she was spending most of the summer at her boyfriend’s place anyway. There was no danger.

“Make yourself at home,” I told Alexander, patting the seat of the couch. “I’ll cook lunch.”

And I did. I whipped out pots and frying pans and started a delicious carbonara. I was in the middle of the delicate process of transferring the pasta from the boiling water to the colander, when the sound of loud voices exploded into the air, almost giving me an heart attack. Hamilton had sat on the TV controller.

“Give it here!”

“What kind of devilry is that? There are PEOPLE in there!” He was shocked, and clutched on the sofa’s arms for dear life.

“It’s a television. It lets you see what’s happening all around the world, and…stuff…”

“How is that possible?”

“Imagine it’s like a window, a window through which you can see what the rest of the world is doing.”

He still looked skeptical, so I lost my patience. “You know what? Let it be. Lunch is ready. Wash your hands and please take that wig off. It makes me cringe, I can’t even begin to think about how many bacteria there are in that thing…”

 

* * *

 

 

The meal was now over. Hamilton – who I discovered was actually a redhead, how cute is that? – hadn’t complained as much as I was expecting through the whole process, dismissing what he now called my “unladylike and vulgar conduct and lacking talent in housekeeping” as “something I was accustomed to see in the army, thus tolerable”.

He didn’t say a word about my pasta, though, he just sat down and ate it from the first to the last maccherone. The fucker.

I then convinced him to take a shower and to wear some of my step-father’s clothes; I really, really tried not to laugh when he had to roll up his pants thrice.

“Okay, we need a plan,” I told him once we were back in the sitting room. “And we need it as soon as possible.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“I mean that you can’t stay at my place forever. We need to figure out what to do with you. Look, I don’t really believe in the existence of a supernatural power, but there must be a reason you got sent back here.”

He nodded. “I have always thought I never was given enough time to accomplish everything I wanted to. Perhaps this is a second chance I’m being given; to finish what I started, and to redeem myself from my past errors. I made many of them.”

 _Yeah, I know_. “Maybe. Anyway, I guess that I might as well tell you about this new reality you find yourself in, as a starter point.”

I laid a huge world map on the carpet and I began pointing at every state, explaining step by step to Hamilton all that I knew about that country’s history, economics and basic politics. I often had to stop to re-elaborate notions that were totally new to him, but he really was a brilliant mind and a fast learner, so it wasn’t too difficult. He had some trouble understanding the concept of communism, though; and when he finally realized what it meant, he simply said,

“Well, that’s idiotic.”

“Yeah, I knew you were going to say that.”

At eight p.m. I stood up, tired and aching. It was enough for one day.

“Where are you going?” Alexander asked. He was absorbed in reading one of my illustrated volumes – I had thought it was too risky for him (and for me) to let him discover about the Internet, for now at least.

“I’ll make some sandwiches.”

“We aren’t finished.”

“Oh, I assure you, we are.”

I brought the food to the living room and he unwillingly put the book a side to take a few bites. “I was thinking about what you said this morning.”

“Uhm?”

“You told me someone wrote a play about my life. Is it true?”

“Sure. The playwright is a very funny, sweet and educated man, and the show is beautiful. It really does you justice – you are the main hero, a brilliant and passionate man, a pest to your enemies. Everything I know about you, I learned from the play.” I sighed. “Your legacy lives on.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “My legacy.” He closed his eyes, and for a moment he appeared very tired, and very old. I suddenly remembered that he was already in his forties, when he died. I hadn’t really thought about his age yet. “Do you think we could head to a theatre, someday, and watch this well-decanted play?”

“Do you happen to have 2000 dollars on you?”

“…No. I have no money.”

“Then, I’m sorry I have to shutter your dreams, but I don’t think we’ll be able to. But you can listen to it, if you want,” I added, taking pity on him. I brought to him my cellphone and my earphones and I selected the _Hamilton_ playlist. He looked at me questioningly.

“We learned how to save sounds, so we can listen to any music we want in any moment. It’s all very complicated. Please, don’t ask me to be more specific.”

But he already wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. His eyes had lit up as he pressed the start button and music flooded into his ears, sweet like a choir of angels.

I stood up and quietly left the room to retire to my bedroom, in silence.


	3. The plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the feeling this story is going to feature some pretty illegal stuff at some point. Oh, well.

I woke up that night with my throat dry and aching; the air around me was sultry.

I climbed down the stairs and, as I was heading to the kitchen to fetch some water, I noticed a figure sitting, motionless, on the edge of the sofa.

“…Alexander?” I whispered, but he didn’t respond. I turned the light on to look at his face.

He had cried, that was clear. I could see that even as he turned his face to the wall to hide it from me. I tried putting an hesitating hand on his shoulder, but he shut me out.

“Are you alright?”

_Of course he is, his eyes are just sweaty._

“Yes,” he croaked. He still had the earphones firmly set in his ears. He removed them and handed the whole package to me. “My mother wasn’t a whore.”

Well, I didn’t know how to reply to _that_ , so I did the most sensible thing I could think of: I stayed silent.

“Thank you anyway,” he continued, in a tone that very clearly meant ‘I’m a forty-something years old man from another century crying my eyes out in front of a teen-ager, please spare me the shame and go away’. “The music was very…different…from what I am usually accustomed to, but I appreciated it.”

“Okay.” I hovered around, picking up invisible lint from my t-shirt. “Don’t you want to…talk about it or something?”

“I don’t.”

“Then you should try and sleep for a while.”

He ran his fingers through his loosened hair. “I believe I won’t be able to. Even though I often pray to be harbored in the arms of dear Morpheus, I’m usually still working this late in the night. It would be way more productive for me If I used this time to carry on my education about the modern times.”

“As you wish. Here,” I switched the TV on and I selected the BBC channel, then I put the remote in his hand. “I’ll go back to bed. Holler if you need anything, will you?”

_Mr. Hamilton, I’m starting to think that you and I should open a co-authored blog: How To Properly Deal With One’s Feelings._

 

* * *

 

 

I came down in the morning at seven (I’m not usually that much of a morning person, but we had WORK to do) only to find Alexander sprawled on the couch, the remote crushed under his body, the TV silently running.

I gently shook his shoulder. “Coffee’s ready. Come on. I slept on it and I think I’ve got a plan, but we have to discuss it first.”

“Would you kindly explain two things to me?” he mumbled in response. “First of all: what in the good Heaven’s name is Brexit. Second of all – and this is less of a question and more of an exclamation: I woke up in the middle of the night to a man screaming from a podium from that…device…and he was very loud and lacking any refinement of speech, or aesthetic sense. I believe he is one of the candidates to my country’s next Presidency?”

“He actually is. Meet Donald Trump,” I answered as I took breakfast to the table. “The hate-spreading, ignorance-fueled, toupee-wearing Republican nominee. Now about my plan…"

“Ah! Of course, he is a Democratic-Republican.”

“Actually, it’s just ‘Republican’.”

Of course then I had to explain to him the fragile political situation American was currently living (or at least try to). Once I was finished, he sipped at his coffee and commented,

“It sounds like any possible result is likely to drive the country to disaster. But, whatever happens, believe me, I would never vote for that Trump guy. Duel him, maybe.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Me, voting for a Republican…perhaps in another life.”

“You did endorse Jefferson, though.”

“It was an act of political sacrifice. Burr as President of the United States? Absolutely impossible,” he shuddered, as if the simple idea was enough to make him terrified.

“’Over your dead body’, uh?” I smirked, and I’m fairly sure he would have killed me if it wasn’t for the sound of feet approaching. The kitchen door swung open. It was my elder sister, still wearing the short dress and the sparkly make-up from the night before. She must have come back home in that exact moment, but I hadn’t heard her car rumbling in the garage. Dammit.

“Hi there, how is it that you are already awake?” she inquired, pouring herself some coffee. “No crazy night yesterday? No whoring around?”

“Nah,” I answered, trying very hard to ignore Hamilton’s breath caressing my leg under the table. Forty-something or not, his reflexes were still really really fast. “Everyone’s still on holiday. I went to the hospice pinewood. Smoked a joint. Same as always.”

“God, you’re so sad.”

“Thanks. It adds to my charm.”

“Very funny. Okay, I think I’ll take a shower and then leave. Michele and I are going to a barbeque today.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, but as soon as she closed the door she re-opened it with a scream.

“What is this?”

She was holding the t-shirt I had tried to get Hamilton to wear the previous afternoon, before settling for a shirt, more formal but much more comfortable to him. My step-father hadn’t used it in years, so she didn’t recognize it. At all.

“Who is he?! You _have_ to tell me,” she started pestering me. “Is it Raffaele from the youth group? Or that bearded giant who always comes to the bar when you’re working there…oh, come on!”

I managed to elude most of her questions, until she finally gave up. “Okay, but I’m watching you!”

I ran to the kitchen and whispered, “Hurry up, we have to get out.”

“I’m beginning to feel fairly annoyed at being constantly pushed and dragged around, I must tell you,” Alexander sneered, hopping up to his feet. “Anyway, let’s go. I think you and I had a plan to talk about?”

 

* * *

  

“It’s very simple,” I spluttered as we sat on the church steps, both devouring a custard-filled croissant. An old woman clad in a black dress was the only other living being in the courtyard. “Well, it _may_ be a little complicated to carry out in real life, but in my head it’s a piece of cake.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay. We have to take you to Lin-Manuel Miranda.” I noticed his blank stare and huffed. “The author of your play!”

“Yes, I remember very well who he is.”

“Good.”

 “But how could a playwright ever help us in…doing whatever it is that we are doing? Dear God, I’ve never felt so lost in my entire life.”

“The real question is, _who else_ but Miranda could ever help us?” I turned all the way to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hey, calm down, listen to me. I thought about this all night. I can’t foresee where this situation is headed, but if someone can help us figure it out, that person is Lin. He knows you, he knows your story and your struggles; there’s no way in the world he would send you away or worse, use you or throw you to the public as a symbol to be eaten alive, nothing but a mean to power and prestige – like any scientist, prophet, journalist or politician would do, in an imaginary world in which your story is given credit to – once he discovers who you are.”

“Because that is the most important point, really – he would believe you. We can go there and be sure that, whatever happens, he will look at you and recognize you, and he’ll be eager to give you the attention you deserve, maybe to help you to regain a role in society, if that’s your destiny. Lin’s faith in the world, even in its most impossible sides, his constant childlike wonder…We can do this, Alexander. We have to do this. He’s the only chance we have.”

He remained silent for a long moment, his eyes to the bright sky. Then,

“Why are _you_ so eager to help me? It would be so much easier for you to abandon me and to go live the life you surely are looking forward to, given your young age.”

“Because I like you. ” Also, I was pretty positive he would end up getting himself killed (again) without someone to guide him in a world he pretty much knew nothing of. I didn’t voice this second thought, though.

But he nodded, apparently deciding it was enough.

“Let’s go and find this gentleman, then.”

“Well,” I cleared my throat, “that’s where the difficult part starts. We have to go to New York City, and even if we succeed in that, we probably won’t be able to find Lin right away. I have no idea where he lives, and unless we are lucky enough to find him wandering around the Rodgers theatre – the theatre where the play is performed, but he isn’t part of the cast anymore – it will be very difficult to meet him.”

“Do not give yourself up to despair,” he reassured me. “Once we find ourselves in New York, we’ll look for him. But we have to reach America first. What do we need?”

“Money, and some identification documents for you (an ID, a passport, and so on – don’t worry if you don’t understand now, you soon will), or you won’t be allowed to travel. I have some money in my bank account, which I was supposed to use for my college tuition; and I have a way to gain more. Even then, it won’t be that much, but it will be enough for the first part of our journey. As for the necessary documents, I have friends who can provide them. Or at least I think so.”

I pulled out a notebook and a pen from my backpack and wrote down a brief list, as doing so usually helped me to focus on the matter at hand. It said,

  1. Find the money
  2. Buy an ID
  3. Fly to America.



“Fly?” Alexander asked, perplexed. “No one is chasing after us.”

I laughed. “No, we’re literally going to fly there. You’ll see.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Hit 'em quick, get out fast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes devote themselves to the underworld. They're cool, but also rather goofy.

“1.200 euros. Plus my grandfather’s gift, by tomorrow our budget should amount to…1.750, more or less.”

We were standing outside the local bank; I had a piece of paper clutched in my hand, my account balance printed on it in huge, black strokes.

Obtaining that transfer hadn’t been that much of a struggle. My father’s family was fairly well-off, and while my sire himself wasn’t enthusiastic at all when it came to me needing money, my grandfather sure as hell was. He popped into my life like some kind of fairy godfather at the most unexpected times, ready to resolve my financial problems; it was during one of this occasions that he had offered to pay my license lessons (starting in September) as a reward after my graduation.

So I lied, and I told him that I was going to sign up for the course in two days. Unethical, but necessary.

“Will that suffice?” asked Alexander, peeking from behind my shoulder.

“Shouldn’t _you_ tell me? You are the skilled one in this field, my dear Debt Master.”

“You are right. And as the ‘skilled one’, as you say, I also know that money value changes from time to time, and that euros most likely don’t equal dollars.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, will it?”

“I’m afraid not,” I sighed. “We can consider this sum our emergency loan, if you want. The real money, we’ll get our hands on in another way. But we have to wait until nighttime to get that part of the plan through. Truth be told, I wished we weren’t forced to do that.”

“Please tell me we aren’t going to commit some kind of awful crime.”

“Shhh, keep your voice down. It’s not that awful. It’s not _legal_ , but I wouldn’t define it morally wrong, either…do you know the story of Robin Hood? Hey!” I had to hurry to catch up with him, for he had walked away shaking his head in exasperation. “Do you want to go to New York or not? Well you’ll have to suck it up then! I’m doing what I can! If you have a better idea, you just tell me, so we can –”

“Alright, alright! Fine!” he interrupted me, crossing his arms on his chest, his lips pursed. “We’ll do this. As long as we don’t have to murder anyone.”

“God, I really hope we don’t,” I replied flatly, but immediately schooled myself under his glare. “Come, I’ll tell you everything as we walk. That lady with the stroller is staring at us.”

We started making our way back towards my apartment. The early afternoon sky was clouding up, turning the painfully deep blue into a pale shade of grey and yellow, where the sunlight touched the fluffy edges.

_I really hope bad weather doesn’t get in our way._

“I have to say this, howsoever,” Hamilton burst out as he waited for me to whip out the key to my apartment, “that ‘credit card’, as I believe you called it, is a work of genius. Practical, efficient, and safe. These modern times really have some wonderful surprises in store.”

“I guess. Hey, this reminds me - is it true that once you lost your bank checkbook, and you had to write to the United States bank and have them send you a new one? You, _the inventor of the American bank_?"

I’m fairly sure that he was blushing under that offended, haughty countenance. “I have no idea of what you are talking about.”

“Sure. Jesus, it’s hilarious.”

“It must be a malicious rumor spread by the fools who opposed my belief of the convenience of a national debt.”

“Uh-uh. Come on, we should try and rest while we can. We have kind of a busy evening ahead of us.”

 

* * *

 

And so there we were at 11.30 p.m., silently sneaking in the shadows that surrounded a group of houses near the far East end of the city, one of which was owned by Antonio, one of the most unbiased drug dealers in the area. He sold very dangerous shit to minors like it were candy, and he had hired a circle of people of all ages to export his merchandise out of town, too.

So yeah, apparently business was fairly good; nevertheless, he lived like a poor man, hidden in a little flat on the second floor of an old, crumpled building near the woods. That house lacked an alarm system, shutters, and double glazing altogether.

Breaking in and stealing his hard-won earning was going to be easy game.

It was now raining cats and dogs, just like I feared, but I found out I was actually pretty happy about it, as rain could slow us down, sure, but it could also protects us from prying eyes and drown out any possible noise Alexander and I would make. One way or another, I wasn’t too preoccupied. That time of the night was ideal as it was late enough for Antonio to be busy drinking at the local bar as was his habit – no thunderstorm was going to stop him – , but not late enough for us to expect him to come back all of a sudden.

I was carrying a flashlight; Alexander was following me.

“Turn it off,” he whispered sharply.

His arguments had slowly changed, throughout the day, from ‘Do we really have to do this?’ to,

“I highly hope you aren’t under the illusion I’m going to climb a wall or anything like that. I’m not twenty anymore.”

“Nope. Here, there’s a staircase.” And indeed, a narrow outdoor staircase connected the open yard to a balcony that encircled one of the buildings. We reached the first floor and I pointed to the building in front of us. Antonio’s balcony and the one we were standing on were about five feets apart.

“You should be able to jump over there.”

Had I not known Hamilton, I would have said he was paling. He sighed. “And you are sure there won’t be consequences.”

“Think about it. Even if - I mean when, when they find the damage, they can’t arrest a ghost, now can they? Your fingerprints mean nothing to them. You are nonexistent.”

“ _Thank you_ , I’ve understood. I’ll try to get out as fast as possible.”

“Remember, the money is probably hidden inside the mattress. Find something to cut it.”

That was an unintentional piece of advice I had been given by Antonio’s teen son, who had been bragging about it one time when we were all gathered in a corner of the town's square. ‘ _Bankers are just thieves, you should always stock your money where you can keep an eye on it_.’

Moron.

I watched as Hamilton climbed up the slippery railing and tried to balance himself, before drawing in a deep breath and throwing himself to the other side. He succeeded in grabbing the metal bars, but his foot slipped and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to fall. Instead, he steadied himself and threw his foot over the edge, letting his body slide past the obstacle with a pained grunt.

I held up the flashlight for him once again as he wrapped a thick piece of cloth around a brick and used it to crash the window glass, so that he could open it from the inside. He then turned the knob and disappeared into the empty flat.

 

* * *

 

I waited for him for what seemed like hours, growing more and more nervous as minutes went by. By the time he emerged by Antonio’s house, I was soaking wet and shivering.

“***, I have it!” he whispered, holding out a huge bundle for me to see.

And that’s the moment when the shouting began.

“WHO ARE YOU?” roared a voice. “FUCKING BURGLARS!”

I spin around to see the large figure of a man sprinting forward from the top of the staircase, reaching out to grab me. I was so startled that I let my flashlight fall to the ground, where it kept rolling from side to side, enlightening the fierce muzzle of a drooling Rottweiler.

“HAMILTON, JUMP!” I shouted, as I did the same from my location. The man’s fingers closed on a lock of my hair, tearing it off as I fell.

I hit the ground hard, but Hamilton hit it even harder, and he let out a cry. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he blurted out. “I think I have sprained my ankle, but – what are you doing? KEEP RUNNING! I’ll manage.”

We ran and ran, water splashing on our faces and blinding us. We ran and never stopped to catch our breath until we found ourselves in the woods. Antonio’s neighbor probably didn’t expect we were going to jump down the damn balcony; this had given us a very good start.

Soon enough, his shouting was lost to our ears, and so was the bawling of the dozens of dogs riled up by our very loud fuckup.

 

* * *

 

“I think we are safe. I hope Antonio’s neighbor wasn’t able to see my face though,” I muttered. “Fuck.”

We were sitting in a muddy ditch next to a brushwood; the narrow trees offered some repair from the rain, but by know the sky was already clearing up. “How is your ankle?”

“It hurts, but I’ll be fine. Stop worrying about me, and let’s get down to business. If we are to stay here for some time while we wait for the dust to settle, we may as well use this time wisely.”

Hamilton started counting the money in the bundle as I pulled out my phone from my backpack and dialed a long number. I breathed deeply before pressing the call button.

“Hello – Myriam? I’m sorry I’m calling you this late, I hope you weren’t sleeping. Yeah. Ah-ah. Yeah, listen, sorry if I introduce the matter all of a sudden, but remember that time you told me about that friend of yours who sells fake IDs…?”

Alexander carefully looked at me as he flipped the money in his hands, not knowing what exactly I was saying, but unwilling to lose a word of it.

“Yeah. I know. But I can pay…Well, it’s difficult to explain…listen, I’ll come to your place tomorrow, is that okay? We can talk about it. Okay, I’ll be there. Bye. See you soon.” I hang up. “Almost done. I hope.”

“1.300 euros,” Hamilton informed me with a grin.

“WHAT?” I didn't think it would be that much. 

“We have been fairly lucky. But then, I’m happy we didn’t go through that ordeal for nothing.”

I couldn’t but agree with him on that. Silence descended upon us as we both got lost in our own thoughts.

After a while, though, Alexander turned to me. “I noticed you get a great amount of tasks done with that item.”

“My phone?”

“Yes. So, you can use it to hear people’s voice…from a distance?”

“Yup. You can also text them.”

I showed him all the different function, pointing the screen as his face lit up in surprise; he was absolutely blown away.

“Sending letters and information far way through the air in the blink of an eye – I can’t think of anything more useful. If we only had had access to something like this during the war! May I try it?”

“Texting or calling?”

“Both, please.”

I let him text one of my closest friends, knowing she wasn’t going to freak out because I had sent her a long, rambling greeting message in old-fashioned English in the middle of the night. Well, maybe that was a bit _too_ long.

“You don’t need to type the entire Declaration of Independence, you know.”

Once he was done, I scanned the numbers in my phone looking for a suitable one. I smiled wickedly as I came across Mrs. Rosario’s number. We had always shared a strong, mutual aversion from the first time we had met and, even if I hadn’t had her as my math teacher during my last year of high-school, nowadays the very thought of her class was enough to give me nightmares; horrible, anxiety-inducing nightmares that left me wide awake, quivering and covered in cold sweat.

Okay, maybe that’s a little melodramatic. In any case, I decided it was now _her_ turn to wake up.

“Say hello,” I told Alex, positioning my phone against his ear.

“Hello…?”

“ _Hello_?” said a raspy voice from the other side. “ _Who’s there?_ ”

 _Just speak_ , I gestured to Alex, trying not to giggle. It was so stupid and childish, but I didn’t care. Then, just as Hamilton opened his mouth to reply,

“ _***, stop fooling around, I know it’s you. I’ve had your number saved in my phone since the last school trip to Barcelona, remember_?”

_Well, shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hated Mrs. Rosario. I suck at revenge, though.


	5. Would that be enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some feelings at the end.

“Have you heard what happened last night?” asked Vera, the owner of the grocer’s shop, as I took the packages of food and two bus tickets from her hands. I hadn’t had much time to go get supplies in the last few days. Guess why.

“No. What happened?” I replied, feigning disinterest, but my heart was already racing. I handed her a few bills, which she ignored, too engrossed into the conversation to pay attention to business.

_Please let not be us_.

“A couple of burglars broke into Antonio’s house.” _Fuck._ “ Do you know Antonio, don’t you?”

“Sure. And, uhm – what did they steal?”

“No one knows,” she shrugged. “Antonio keeps whining about this to anybody who will listen, but on the other hand I understand that he doesn’t want to press charges, so the whole thing is kind of pointless.”

“Why wouldn’t he press charges, I wonder.”

“Well,” she said with a smile, leaning out from behind the counter, “everyone knows Antonio is a shady guy. I bet that there’s a reason he doesn’t want the police to snoop around his place, or to discover _what_ exactly was lifted and _by whom_ …”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust him near my kids,” a woman behind me intervened. It was early in the morning, so the line was composed only by the two of us and by a frail, silent old man patiently waiting for his turn. “I heard he went to jail.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.”

“It’s a real shame that we are forced to live side by side with that kind of scum.”

“And that son of his, too –”

“I don’t even want to know what happened in that house, I’m not even curious – ”

“Okay, ladies, sorry to interrupt,” I burst out. I had heard enough. I shoved the money into Vera’s hand and used my own free hand to wave at the two women. “That was a really nice chat, but I have to go now. See you soon!”

“Oh, of course, honey. Say hello to your mom for me!”

“Sure!” I yelled back as I strode into the street, my sunglasses bopping on my nose. That was good news. Very good news. I looked forward to share it with Alexander.

 

* * *

 

 

“We’re clean!” I shouted as I slammed the front door closed with my foot.

Silence.

“Alex?”

I found him lying on the couch where I had left him, my laptop on his belly and my earphones plugged in his ears, looking at the screen with two big bloodshot eyes.

We had returned to my place at three in the morning, covered in mud up to our knees after our long walk through the woods. As we were too excited and worried to sleep – or at least I was; Alexander had claimed his lack of tiredness was only due to his hurting ankle and his usual restlessness (sure!) – we hadn’t even tried to. I had given him some pomade to put on his swelling and on the dozens of mosquito bites we were both covered in.

“They ate me alive,” he cursed.

“And they aren’t Democratic-Republicans. Isn’t that an improvement.”

I had then proceeded to welcome him into the magical world of the Internet.

At first I had been wary to do that (Hamilton on the Internet, on the social media – what a fucking nightmare), but after the first two hours the world hadn’t imploded yet, so I guess it was fine. The funniest side of all of it had been observing Alexander’s reactions; four very different looks had quickly followed one another on his face in the brief space of an hour, in this order:

1- Surprise

2- Betrayal (that I had kept such an important thing from him up until now was in his eyes a crime by no means milder than treason)

3- Suspicion (“Are you sure they don’t know I’m spying on them right now?”)

4- Complete and total concentration.

He had spent a lot of time on Wikipedia, erasing every doubt that popped into his mind with a few clicks; he had asked me to google _every single person_ he had known in his life and then proceeded to angrily point out all the historical errors he could find, until I had begged him to have mercy on my mental health; and he had of course googled himself, finding a gold mine both of historical and musical-related stuff.

“This is ridiculous.”

“I’m not coming off that money.”

“I like this Mr. Chernow.”

“I never said that!”

What had really sucked him in, however, were first of all the Founders Archives, where he took his time attentively scanning his letters to Washington, to Eliza Schuyler, to John Laurens, his eyes shining with tears.

“This was censored,” he said, pointing at the screen where the wording _My dear Jack_ stood out. “You say it was my son, John Church, who sorted out all of my personal correspondence?”

“…It was.”

He gave a brief nod and turned to the screen again, his jaw tightened.

Then there was Google Maps, which he quickly got the handle of and used to visit all the places dear to his memory.

I think I had ended up falling asleep at some point while he virtually roamed the streets of Nevis, but I had woken up as he shook me by the shoulder. He was looking at a street view of the Trinity Church graveyard.

At his tomb.

“Do you think we could go there, someday? I need to see it. I don’t know why. I simply need to, it’s like a boiling fluid within my veins propelling me to that place.” He had looked at his hands, almost talking to himself. “To the tangible proof of my mortality. God…”

“Once we have found Lin, we can do whatever you want, visit everywhere you can think of. It’s a promise.”

And he had smiled.

Now, I sneaked behind his back and removed one of the earphones.

“Alex!”

“WHAT IN the bloody hell…”

“I’m back,” I said with a peaceful smile. “And, guess what? Antonio won’t press charges for what happened last night. We are not in trouble. Are you still watching the _Ham4Ham_ shows?”

I had spent some time that night showing him pictures of Lin, videos of Lin, Lin talking, Lin singing, Lin goofing around. I felt like the perfect stalker (or professional killer), but the thing was, we were going to have to look for Mr. Miranda in a very crowded place. Alex needed to be able to recognize the man.

He blushed a little. “Well, I didn’t remember how to leave this particular page, and the videos kept being reproduced on their own. What were you saying?”

I told him what I had learned from Vera’s blabbering.

“I’m glad the risk of us going to jail – God forbid – has been canceled. I just hope this new feeling of safety won’t cause us to procrastinate our departure.”

“Not at all. I still need to come back as soon as possible so that my family doesn’t become suspicious, I have to start college soon, and frankly I’d like to leave the city and to go as far away as possible from some pissed off drug dealers; it doesn’t matter if they suspect us or not.”

“I assume that leaving tomorrow would be the best course of action.”

“Yeah, just let me call Mario and tell him I came down with a stomach flu or something and I can’t go to work tomorrow evening, nor any other evening. Let’s go, we still have to get you an ID and a passport.”

We took a bus to the city where my friend Myriam lived – remember Myriam? The one I was on speaking to on the phone in the last chapter? – and found two seats. Alexander looked out of the window for a while with open curiosity, before deciding it wasn’t that much different from travelling in a carriage, after all; he reclined his head against the backrest and soon he started snoring. Sleep had finally caught up on him.

We got off an hour later and I was surprised to find Myriam already waiting for us at the corner of the street. We followed her through the Senegalese district, where she lived with her family, up to her house.

“Who are these people?” Alexander asked, looking at the wary pairs of eyes that followed us as we walked.

“Immigrants,” I answered.

Once we were at her place, Myriam offered us some coke – Hamilton almost threw his up through his nose, and my friend gave him a perplexed glance – and quickly got to the point. “Why do you need those documents?”

“Because I know Mamadou can provide them. By the way, they aren’t for me. They’re for him.”

Myriam glanced at Hamilton. “That’s not what I mean, and you know that. Maybe Mamadou isn’t going to ask questions, but I am. You have always been a good, quiet girl when we were still in school. What kind of trouble did you put yourself into?”

In that very moment Myriam’s mother came into the kitchen and gave us a nod of acknowledgment. “Hi, ***, how are you?” She then turned to her daughter and said in French, “ _Il est tard. Je vais toi attendre à le magasin, oui?_ ”

“ _Oui, oui, mama_.”

Myriam waited until her mother was out and then pressed the matter again. “So?”

I opened my mouth to answer, not really sure of what I was going to say, but a hand landed gently on my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks.

I watched, mesmerized, as Hamilton stepped in front of me and began talking to Myriam himself. His French was soft and even and, even if I barely could understand a word out of that humming, I was taken aback by the gentleness I found in his voice. Once or twice he pointed in my direction, and Myriam followed his gaze, nodding, her face painted with a mixture of worry and tenderness. I really didn’t know what to think.

The conversation lasted no more than two or three minutes, but clearly it was a success, because as soon as it was over Myriam cleared her throat and nodded.

“Okay, I’m taking you to Mamadou.”

I looked at Hamilton. _What the fuck?_

Mamadou’s office was in an old basement behind the grocer’s shop. There were two computers, an archive, a printer, and, in the back, the exact copy of a photographer’s shop.

“He says you can have what you need for six-hundred bucks.” Myriam translated, pointing at the tall young man. “Normally it’s just three-hundred a person, but you are not a compatriot. It will take a couple of days, maybe three.”

“What? No, I need these documents as soon as possible. Tell him I’ll pay him twice as much if he can finish the work within today.”

Myriam turned to her friend and they quarreled for a bit in their own language. I could feel Alex palpitating by my side. Calm and confident while speaking French, he was now growing more and more nervous as he realized the situation was once again getting out of his hand.

Luckily, it didn’t last much, or God know what he would have done. Interrupt them and totally ruin our trading, probably. “He wants 1.400. Not an euro less.”

We couldn't really refuse.

Mamadou led Alexander to the back and took three photos of him. We provided all the information he was going to need to fulfill the new documents (name, age, place of birth, living place), trying to keep it as close to reality as possible. Once we were done, Myriam suggested that we take a walk while we waited.

“I have to go to work,” she told me. “Anyway, now I understand why you want to help him. He really is a wonderful person. I hope you’ll be happy together, wherever you go.”

I returned a blank stare. “Sure.”

Hamilton and I went downtown and sat outside of a pub.

“What, for the love of God, did you tell her?” I asked.

He waved away the question, a smile dancing on his lips. “Don’t worry about what I did and didn’t say. It worked, didn’t it. The question is, what did she say about me?”

“That you are a wonderful person.”

“She undoubtedly is a sensible girl.”

“I’m serious. Tell me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe some other time.”

We ordered something to drink. Alexander was disappointed when our very annoyed waitress pointed out she – surprise, surprise – couldn’t serve him a bottle of a very refined 1776 whisky. “Seriously, what kind of place is this?”

We ate the lunch I had packed and spent a good part of the afternoon strolling through the park, talking.

By the time we went back to Mamadou’s, everything was ready.

NAME: Alexander Miller

DAY AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 01/11/1969, Charlestown, Nevis, USA

NATIONALITY: American

…

Alexander’s eyes were wide in the photo, and shimmering because of the flash.

“Very well,” I commented as I examined it. “Very, very well.”

 

* * *

 

 

That evening I bought two online tickets to New York. The operation drained my credit card, and I had absolutely no idea of how we were supposed to afford a place to sleep in once in the city.

_Well, there are a lot of entrance halls. And underground stations._

I showed Alex a map of the city and discussed with him the route we were going to tread.

“Don’t forget how Lin looks. From now until tomorrow, images portraying him are your Bible,” I muttered as I leaned over to recover our tickets from my printer, under the desk. “If we lose him, we may never have be able to find him again.”

Alexander stayed silent, and that was new. I turned around to glance at him. He was sitting in my other desk chair, smoking a cigarette from a package he had found in my backpack. A thin line of smoke slowly rose to the ceiling, for there was no wind coming in from the open window; only the still breath of a silent, warm summer night.

“Alex?”

“What if we don’t find him?”

“We will. I made a promise.”

“I’m not a child, I don’t necessarily believe in those,” he huffed. “If we don’t…what then? What am I supposed to do? I have _nothing_. I’m nothing but a revived ghost from a dark past. No home to go back to, no family to embrace.”

“Alex, listen – ”

He held up a hand. “I know you are just trying to help me, but it’s frustrating and painful nonetheless. It all started as a bizarre dream, but as days pass I find myself thinking more and more frequently about what I left behind and can never have back. It’s the past, I keep repeating to myself, everything, _everyone_ is over. If I have to believe you – and I really want to – finding this Mr. Miranda and getting him to help our cause is, right now, the only aim I have in this new world. Should I find out my hopes are but a mere illusion,” he stopped to put out his cigarette with an abrupt gesture, “What would my reason be? I would have none.”

“The Hamilton I know wouldn’t talk like that.”

“The Hamilton you know is a fictional character with downplayed weaknesses. Don’t think you know me so well. Just answer my question.”

His harshness took me by surprise, but the thing was, he was right. And he deserved a honest answer, as much as I was able to provide him with one.

“I don’t know.” I fidgeted with my hands. “I suppose, in that case, we’ll just have to find you a new reason.”

I hoped it would be enough. I really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I'm back! Let me know what you think!


End file.
